Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are present in only small quantities in the air, but often form a large part of the gas effluent of various industrial processes. A process for converting carbon dioxide and water to formaldehyde using a laser is disclosed in application Ser. No. 599,494 filed July 28, 1975. Although carbon dioxide is not considered to be a pollutant, that process does enable the off-hour electrical generating capacity of utilities to be used to produce a useful chemical from extremely inexpensive materials.
Carbon monoxide, on the other hand, is a pollutant which must be removed from effluent gases. It therefore has a "negative cost" and a process which could not only remove it but could produce a useful chemical as well would be doubly useful.